Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Alright, so it's probably best to take a faster paced approach to baseball, but it is possible to single an opponent to death when you squeeze them all together. That's what the Rockies did today, collecting twelve singles out of their thirteen hits. The key being that seven of those singles came within eight batters during the 6th inning, leading to five runs.

He singled thrice. The first one coming after he spoiled three very tough two strike pitches from Mat Latos. On the 8th pitch of the at-bat, he looped one into short right field that the Padres couldn't handle. Blackmon was then forced at second on a Jose Morales fielder's choice, but his at-bat created the run. Well, his single, and then consecutive singles by Jhoulys Chacin and Carlos Gonzalez.

His second single was No. five out of the seven in the 6th. Stay with me. It drove it one. Ryan Spilborghs followed two singles later with the killer two-run hit that put the game away for Colorado.

Blackmon's third single was of the infield variety. He then stole a base for the 5th consecutive game. That has to be a Rockies record, doesn't it? Just to have a player reach base five games in a row this season is pretty newsworthy, so we tip our cap to the kid.

Jhoulys Chacin: The singles were the story, and Blackmon was great, but Chacin was the player of the game. He's just rolling right along, dominating the NL West. Eight wins. ERA at 2.81. His batting average against is .197, which is lower than Ubaldo's at this point last season. Pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Baserunning: How many times will George or Drew say Jim Tracy doesn't need to have a conversation with Troy Tulowitzki about his latest baserunning gaffe, yet he makes the same mistakes over and over? Have the damn conversation already!

Overall: That really covers it. Another really solid TEAM win, where everybody who played, with the exception of maybe Matt Lindstrom, contributed positively. All nine starters in the lineup had at least one hit. Spilborghs had the big pinch-hit. Couple of really sound wins to build off of.